The invention relates to an apparatus for producing bristle arrangements for brushes, in particular toothbrushes, having a bristle supply and having an apparatus which is intended for removing individual clusters of bristles from the bristle supply and has at least one cluster holder, and having a transporting apparatus for transporting the clusters of bristles through at least one hollow line, by means of a gas stream or air stream, into perforations of a cluster-retaining plate, these perforations, for accommodating a cluster of bristles transported in a hollow line, being contoured in each case to correspond to the desired cluster contour.
Such an apparatus is known, for example, from EP 0 405 204 B1. A plurality of clusters of filaments here are transported into a carrier plate via hoses. The clusters of filaments are then fused to a thermoplastic carrier plate and/or encapsulated in plastic material by injection molding to form a brush head. The individual clusters of bristles here each have a round cross section. In particular in the case of toothbrushes nowadays, however, there is a desire to have more complex bristle arrangements in which at least individual clusters of bristles have a non-circular cross section, for example a rectangular or triangular cross section.
Numerous further publications, for example DE 101 08 339 A1 or DE 34 05 001 A1, also disclose apparatuses and methods for transferring clusters of bristles into cluster-retaining plates in order to form a bristle arrangement. The individual clusters of bristles here, however, likewise always have a round, circular cross section.